Ben
27th May 2005, 12:09 AM
As has been discussed, some of the Orange TV content went live today, along with the Orange TV application. Here's some first impressions:
The OTV application itself downloads and installs quite quickly. The first time you open it, you're taken to a WAP page where you agree to subscribe to Orange TV. The first 3 months (!!!!!!) are completely free. After that you're charged £10 a month if you continue the service. You can cancel at any time from within the application itself.
Initially I tried the service while on the move, and I can safely say that it doesn't cope incredibly well going along at motorway speeds. However, once I was home I was able to try it stationary and in good signal, and I was amazed! Sometimes the quality starts off quite low, but then it reconnects at a higher quality and you get a really nice clear fluid picture.
Sometimes the picture will stop and the service will reconnect... I assume it's actually buffering, but the initial application doesn't have a separate way of showing that. Also, the application doesn't stop the backlight from turning off, so you'll need to adjust that manually. Hopefully both these issues will be addressed in version two of the software - which I expect we'll see at some point, I know there has been at least one further release of the Orange Music Player software. The initial channel played currently seems to be CNN. There aren't any customisable settings at this time.
Each time you use the player you also have to allow it access to use GPRS and select an access point. I'm using Orange Internet because the others don't work so well, but I might check with Orange to make sure it doesn't matter which access point I'm using!
There's nothing quite like watching real streamed content on your mobile phone. You'll need to see it to believe it.
The OTV application itself downloads and installs quite quickly. The first time you open it, you're taken to a WAP page where you agree to subscribe to Orange TV. The first 3 months (!!!!!!) are completely free. After that you're charged £10 a month if you continue the service. You can cancel at any time from within the application itself.
Initially I tried the service while on the move, and I can safely say that it doesn't cope incredibly well going along at motorway speeds. However, once I was home I was able to try it stationary and in good signal, and I was amazed! Sometimes the quality starts off quite low, but then it reconnects at a higher quality and you get a really nice clear fluid picture.
Sometimes the picture will stop and the service will reconnect... I assume it's actually buffering, but the initial application doesn't have a separate way of showing that. Also, the application doesn't stop the backlight from turning off, so you'll need to adjust that manually. Hopefully both these issues will be addressed in version two of the software - which I expect we'll see at some point, I know there has been at least one further release of the Orange Music Player software. The initial channel played currently seems to be CNN. There aren't any customisable settings at this time.
Each time you use the player you also have to allow it access to use GPRS and select an access point. I'm using Orange Internet because the others don't work so well, but I might check with Orange to make sure it doesn't matter which access point I'm using!
There's nothing quite like watching real streamed content on your mobile phone. You'll need to see it to believe it.